


Lost in Translation

by windychimes



Category: Bastion
Genre: M/M, i'm sorry i don't know shit about language, no semi-colons were harmed in the making of this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 18:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windychimes/pseuds/windychimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some words don't translate fully, but Kid and Zulf make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> Belatedly written for Bastion week

Zulf has long been fluent in Cael but sometimes the words are lost—descriptions of things distinctly Cael, things that sit on Zulf’s tongue and don’t quite make it out. There isn’t a word for sky, Zulf’s said—he’s spoken Cael for twenty years and sometimes he still forgets the word, points upwards and says _tenyo Oya_ : blue ceiling. The first time Zulf waited for Kid to laugh because everyone laughed, delighted that the uppity little Ura wasn’t so smart after all. Kid didn’t, said, ‘That’s a good word for it.’ Kid’s been knocked in the head a few times now; he knows what it’s like to forget words.

The first time Zulf’s accent slips is out is when they’re drinking. He’s had more than enough; it’s his first time being drunk since the Calamity. It takes a little to notice but then it’s there, the honeyed-quality to his voice, slow and sweet. There’s always been an Ura lilt to his speech, an accent slight enough to accentuate his words without overpowering them. It’s something Kid imagines would be popular with ladies; fellas, too, certainly. Kid has a fondness for it, a fondness he swallows and keeps buried deep in his heart. Zulf is talking, and then he is looking at Kid, and then his cheeks are flushing and he’s covering his mouth and he says, ‘I’m sorry,’ and the accent is gone. ‘Don’t be,’ Kid says, and that fondness for Zulf’s voice swirls and reaches its crescendo—he kisses Zulf, steals Zulf’s voice from his lips. Zulf kisses back; they share their voices.

Zulf complains about Cael, sometimes, about the lack of feeling words—Ura has so many; where is the Cael word for the calm melancholy of a rainy day ( _yuususom_ ), or kissing someone under a new moon ( _kokozu_ )? Kid points out Ura’s got all those fancy feeling words but Cael has words for combining a machete and a musket ( _maskete_ ) and Ura doesn’t so it ain’t so great now, huh? Zulf looks at Kid, a strange sort of grin on his face, and laughs until he cries and won’t tell Kid why.

_Ususumo_ is what Zulf calls him, leaves it written in notes stuffed in Kid’s boots, when Kid remembers to take them off. Zulf won’t tell him what the word means; instead he whispers it between unplanned kisses; writes it into Kid’s skin with his fingers; breathes it into Kid’s hair. Kid repeats it back to Zulf when he can, stumbles over the sounds, tries to mimic the honey tones of Zulf’s voice. The sounds are thick and sweet and stay heavy on his tongue, stick in his throat. Every time he does Zulf exhales, smiles, laughs in a manner entirely too infectious; they are kissing between laughs and laughing between kisses and the word is between their lips and under their thumbs and alive in their veins. _Yuzuzumo_ , the Kid says, almost gets the pronunciation; _Yuzuzumo_ , Zulf repeats, and gets it wrong just for him.


End file.
